


The Thing About Soulmates

by Mardiaz173



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Codependency, Dysfunctional Relationships, F/M, M/M, outsider pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-25
Updated: 2016-06-25
Packaged: 2018-07-18 05:07:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7300738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mardiaz173/pseuds/Mardiaz173
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The word 'soulmates' usually has a sort of positive connotation with it. It doesn't really get across the message of two people bound through thick and thin, for better or for worse. Even if the worse is pretty bad</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Thing About Soulmates

Dean is two when he first starts to ask Mary about the name in big, blocky letters that decorate the underside of her forearm. He can't read yet, but there's a familiarity that he has with the last name. Winchester, she guesses it's because it's his last name and he's always been an exceptionally bright child. He usually strokes that part when she holds him. 

“Mommy, wassat on your arm,” he asks for the third time in one week, and she decides to tell him. 

“It's the name of my soulmate, honey,” she replies, scooping him up and tilting her arm so he could see and he looks at it with a reverence she thinks is rare. 

“Wassa soulmate?”

Mary smiles, resting her head atop of Dean's. “It's someone you were made for. Someone you love no matter what.” 

“Wassit say?” 

“John Winchester, that's your daddy’s name, baby.” 

“Does Daddy have your name?” 

“Yes, he does. Mary Campbell, that's my name.”

“Oh, okay,” he says, still stroking it and she thinks it was a rather anticlimactic end to one of the biggest questions in her entire life. Not everyone has a soulmate. In fact, they're really rare. She doesn't know if she hopes Dean has one or not. She wants him to be free to love whoever, not bound to one person no matter what, but she'll also be glad her baby has someone to look out for him forever. 

Later, Mary catches him looking at John one of the days he's still at the house. It takes him all of two minutes to ask to see John's arm and John kneels down to show him. Dean takes one look, scrunches his nose up, and then walks back to Mary saying, “I like Mommy’s better.”

Her and John exchange glances and she can tell he is as unsure if they should be offended on what their son thinks of their names as she is. Does he not like her name? Is he confused by the Campbell on John's arm? Does Mary just give Dean a better vibe and it doesn't have anything to do with the name at all? Maybe hers is just more recognizable. 

Looking back, Mary is unsure if she should've been suspicious then or if hindsight really is twenty/twenty.

***

Mary is just slightly relieved when Dean turns three and still doesn't have a soulmate name on his arm. She hears having a soulmate is genetic, but she thinks it's all bull. Her father and her mother weren't soulmates, just two people who happened to fall in love and she doesn't think John's parents were either.

And that isn't to say that Mary doesn't feel guilty about her anxiety decreasing with every year that Dean grows older. She loves John with all her heart, soul, and mind, but she's smart enough to realize this isn't what she wants her baby to have; leaving, returning, apologies. It's not entirely healthy and a little tiring, and she wants Dean to have the best. And the older he gets, the less likely he'll have a soulmate. 

Though, Mary knows that's all over when she talks to him just a month or two after his third birthday. 

He's not entirely fascinated on the subject of soulmates. She actually thinks the talk of them bores him and the only reason he'll put up with it is because he loves her. It's rare for this to happen, she hears stories about all the other children his age asking their parents why don't they have a soulmate like the ones they see on TV and if they'll ever have one themselves. 

“Hey, Dean, what do you think about soulmates? Wanna talk about them with Mommy, huh?” Mary asks one day, trying to figure out what exactly goes on in that big brain of his. 

All that Dean does is regard her with a rather curious look, like he's inquiring about why she's asking him about it rather than him being confused on the subject. He seems far older than his years, almost as if she's the one that knows less about them than he does even though she is the one that actually has one. 

“Not everyone has a soulmate, Mommy,” he says almost patiently, stacking another block on his little building. 

“How do you know that?” she asks him, sitting down next to him and watching him play with his toys. 

“‘Cause I can tell,” he replies simply, as if it's common knowledge. “Most kids don't got one. You and Daddy are the only grownups I know that got ‘em. ‘Cept that nice lady down the street.”

Mary thinks he means the depressed, old widow at the end of the block. She's bitter and angry at the world, yelling at kids on her lawn and house falling apart. Mary catches her all the time staring out the window despondently. Mary thinks she lives off her late husband's inheritance because she's never seen her leave the house. She thinks it's odd that the lady seems to have taken a liking to Dean, waving to him from her window and she even once called him and John over to give them a plate of cookies. Mary remembers John telling her about how the lady had taken a little interest in John, more than anyone else on the block, but primarily saved her attention for Dean. 

“She had a soulmate?”

“Yeah, she was married, then she lost hers.” 

“How do you know that?” 

“‘Cause she told me, she says she can tell, too. She says that it's special.”

Mary doesn’t understand why she can't tell and she doesn't think John can either.

“It's okay, Mommy,” Dean says like he can read her thoughts, putting his blocks down and climbing into her lap. “You're good, even if you don't know. S’okay.” 

Mary is aware enough to know that her son is special, and not just because he most definitely has a soulmate as well.

***

Dean is three years and seven months old when Mary gets pregnant again. She breaks it to him at three years and ten months, though, because she is unsure how he'll react to having a sibling. She hopes he knows that just because Mary is having another baby doesn't mean she'll love him any less. 

“Oh,” is all that he says when they finally tell him. He goes back to eating his peanut butter and jelly sandwich like they hadn't said anything important at all. 

“Oh?” John repeats, vaguely amused. 

“S’why you're different, right?” Dean replies. 

“Like how Mommy acts?” Mary asks, trying to clarify. 

“I dunno,” Dean says. “You're just different.”

Mary smiles, sitting down next to Dean. She rubs her belly, which is already starting to show, and looks at Dean, who has put down his sandwich to look at her. “You want to feel?” she asks. 

Dean hopes down off his chair, goes over to Mary, holding his hands up apprehensively. 

“Go on, buddy,” John encourages, taking Dean's seat. 

Putting one on Mary’s growing bump, Dean eyes widen as he giggles. “I’mma be your big brother,” he says excitedly, almost a complete one-eighty from his previous, unfazed demeanor

“Are you excited to be a big brother?” Mary asks.

Dean nods, still staring at Mary’s belly. “Yeah, he's mine.”

***

When Dean is four years old, they have another baby on May 2nd. They had tried to get Mike to watch him while Mary went into labor, but Dean had thrown a tantrum at being left behind. Finally, John had decided to bring Dean to the hospital with them and even though the doctors had been apprehensive about it, they let him sit outside of the room. Dean hadn't been pleased with waiting, but he had to accept it while a nurse kept him company. 

Mary gets delivered a bundle of joy after a couple of long, excruciating hours. He's not crying, that's Mary's first thought. She's worried, extremely, but she wants to say hello to her new baby before anything. 

He's a Samuel, she knows it. They were still on the fence about whether or not they should name him after Mary's father when they already named Dean after her mother, but Mary is certain now. 

“Hello, Samuel,” she coos, looking at her baby, tears flying to her eyes as John makes a sniffling sound from the corner of the room. 

The joy that Mary feels when Sam immediately starts screaming is indescribable after being handed a silent baby. She's so glad, so thrilled that nothing's wrong she feels tears fall. 

Then she hears Dean scream. It takes no more to have John rushing outside as Mary tries to calm down Sam, who sounds almost in pain and Mary thinks her joy was too soon. She tries rocking him and humming as half of her mind worries about Dean. 

It takes ten minutes for John to return, in the span of that time Mary had almost left the bed to see what was going on even if Sam was still crying, and John’s holding Dean to his chest and rubbing his back soothingly as Dean clutches at his own arm.

“Mary,” John speaks, face grave as he glances between Sam and Dean. Mary feels dread pulse fiercely through her. “Mary, look at Sam's arm.”

Opening the blanket so Mary could see, she slightly tilts Sam's arm, making sure not to hurt him in her anxious curiosity. The lettering she notices on Sam's arm is miniscule, but she manages to make out what it says in black, blocky lettering. 

Dean Winchester

These tears she sheds aren't of joy.

***

Her and John’s relationship never was the healthiest thing in the world. She has always been self-aware enough to realize that. Too many apologizes, too much anger, too much devotion. It seems, though, that the news of their children being each other’s soulmate has made it worse. 

They both have different ideas on how they should deal with it. John thinks that they should limit contact with the other, and she can tell it tore him up inside to say that. Mary is convinced that if they don't encourage, but also don't discourage each other’s interaction they could grow up to be just a normal pair of brothers. 

Maybe it's the hunter voice in the back of her head whispering that they're both delusional fools. 

She can't separate her children, however. Dean looks too happy whenever he is trying to play with baby Sammy. He cradles him on his lap like he's the most precious thing in the world and babbles to Sam about anything and everything. 

Sam, meanwhile, cannot sleep without Dean in the room and he always reaches his hands towards his brother to lift him up. 

John disapproves of it so much that he has started leaving the house for days. He calls everyday, but one time he stayed away for almost an entire week at Mike’s, who had just called to tell Mary that he's sorry about whatever is going on in their household. 

One thing they both can agree on is that they're not telling anyone about it. They both have soulmate blockers on their wrist. Mary originally thought that the idea of a bracelet completely hiding someone's soulmate from view was barbaric, because it was usually used for infidelity (soulmates, sadly, don't always work out), but now she's just grateful. 

She contemplates if the brother thing has happened before. 

She's making her oldest a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on one of the days, July 2nd she thinks, when John calls from Mike’s once again. 

“I'm gonna be stayin’ here for a couple of days,” he says lowly over the phone and Mary briefly wonders why she thought that wouldn't be the first thing out of his mouth. 

Putting the phone between her head and shoulder, she continues cutting up Dean’s sandwich. “I can't keep doing this with you, John.” 

“Mary, you know how I feel about this--this predicament.” 

It's one thing Mary has noticed. Her husband can't seem capable of saying the words. 

“You can't keep leaving like this. We have two boys we have to raise and I can't do that if you keep insisting on running me ragged.” 

“You mean our sons who you continue to let interact abnormally. Mary, this isn't normal!”

“In case you haven't noticed, John, this entire situation isn't normal! You want me to hold each of them hostage away from the other? You know how upset that would make them? Act like they can be normal and they can be normal!” 

There's a tug at her elbow, and Mary looks down to see Dean looking up at her inquiringly. 

“Not right now, baby,” she says quietly to Dean. She then puts down the knife and runs a hand through her hair. “I'm not doing this right now, John. We can talk about it, again, when you come back. For now, just stay gone. I need to focus on these two.”

She hangs up. 

Dean wraps his tiny arms around Mary and smiles up at her. “It's okay, Mommy,” he says smiling. “You and Daddy are soulmates. Nothing's gonna keep you away from each other.” 

Mary glances at Sam making a gurgling noise from his highchair. Her stomach starts twisting unpleasantly and her mouth tastes bitter. She rakes a hand through Dean’s hair. He deserves a lot more than what he got. Both of her sons. 

The feeling in her stomach is guilt as she tries not to think of the fact that John and her are trying to keep Dean away from his soulmate. It's even more awful when Mary thinks about the fact that she’s doing it to not one, but both of her sons. 

She tries to tell herself it's for the best. 

Four months later she hasn't convinced herself. It fact, one of her last thoughts is quite the opposite.

**Author's Note:**

> "I remember this. Mom and Dad were fighting and then he moved out for a couple days."
> 
> "Dad always said they had the perfect marriage."
> 
> "It wasn’t perfect until after she died."
> 
> -Dean Winchester and Sam Winchester 5x16 "Dark Side of the Moon"


End file.
